I think LLMs are an interesting technology. Of course, the output is inherently untrustworthy, and that rules out a ton of applications tech bros are trying to cram it into.

Huh?

I think people just need to reset their expectations.

I asked one for help to interpret PCI policy application (credit card regulatory stuff). I gave it the situation and it provided me with a good answer that, when I asked our compliance team about, they agreed.

That saved me a lot of time. I don't see how that's a dead end. Then I had it draft a response to the person asking questions; I tuned it a little to my liking and sent it. What might have taken me an hour before took 10 minutes. This seems like a helpful thing, not a bad thing. I'm not sure what other technology would have done that.

Do you have any examples?

They aren’t interesting in the slightest, as anything they can do is already done more effectively and efficiently with other tools

Then why are the other tools not being used?

LLMs translate much better than anything that was engineered. Summarization of text is another application where there are simply no engineered counterparts.

LLMs certainly don't live up to the absurd hype created by the tech sector, but it is just as absurd to state that they are worse than other tools in all tasks.